Science undermined by scientists
The active role of scientists in the public debate is one of the most special aspects of the corona crisis. The most visible were and are the world-famous microbiologists Marc Bonten and Marion Koopmans. They tweet a lot, often appear on TV and act in unison as opinion makers. As a member of the Dutch Outbreak Management Team (OMT), they helped determine government policy. The Leiden scientist Jaap van Dissel, better known as director of the RIVM (Dutch CDC), has also become part of the national social fabric. Koopmans and Van Dissel won several important prizes for communication and popularization of Science thanks to their efforts in the pandemic.
It's good for a professor to get involved in public debate. Brave even, because Koopmans had to endure serious threats. There is already enough nonsense going around and a well-known scientist can help protect the public against misinformation. The annoying thing, however, is that Bonten, Koopmans and Van Dissel don't stick to saying things that are correct. On the contrary, they have run along with, or even came up with, the ministry's Covid "talking points" on TV and Twitter since early 2020. For example, herd immunity would be “achieved before the end of 2020”, asymptomatic transmission is “1 to 5%” of the total, aerosol transmission is rare. Children played a “limited” role in the epidemic. They talked about containment of the outbreak as Dutch policy and the limited effectiveness, even the danger, of masks.
None of that was true, and our Stichting Protect EveryBody foundation has been busy in recent years with (succesful) lawsuits against the cabinet to fight that nonsense. In the US, such political (well-intentioned) disinformation is called “noble lies”, but a scientist should leave such a thing to officials. Jaap “carnival is safe because celebrated in small groups” Van Dissel has the excuse that as RIVM boss he is a civil servant. But that doesn't apply to full-time scientists.
Even less welcome is that Bonten and Koopmans, as OMT members, have been instrumental in the Dutch strategy of rapidly building up "group immunity" in the population. This strategy failed in every way and only gave our country mass disease, unnecessary economic damage and a lot of social tensions. The UN established that the choice to let it rip (within limits of avoiding overly extreme stress on ICU units) in countries such as the Netherlands and Sweden even condemned the world to this virus. The professors defended this strategy, also on TV, as inevitable and desirable.
After the goverment plan collapsed in 2020, together with the hospitals, Koopmans denied that the strategy ever existed, only interrupted by Bonten, who honestly talks about "allowing the virus to circulate as much as possible". Ministers and OMT members proudly point to the "fantastic immunity" that the Netherlands has built up with mass (universal and usually repeated) infections. Fantastic indeed, because that wishful thinking did not come true either.
The ministry is trying to convert the scientific concept of "herd immunity" (the virus stops when enough people were sick) to a "herd immunity against serious disease" (after many infections, ICUs don't become as easily overloaded when lots of infections happen). For example, the ministry seems to want to defend the policy that openly aimed for a herd immunity that never came. The Amsterdam Free University cancer scientist Professor Marjolein van Egmond is actively involved in this, in a remarkable video from the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. Bonten joins in cordially. But Koopmans also spoke about "protection against serious illness" in the context of herd immunity. The concept of "containing" the outbreak also received the same anti-scientific treatment thanks to OMT members and the ministry.
Conflict of interest and the origin of the virus
Science doesn't merely suffer from the words of scientists, but also from their conflicts of interest. Researchers need money and nowadays get it from projects funded by governments, foundations and companies. Such research is carried out in large teams. In addition, it is normal (although not necessarily desirable) for a researcher to receive money from an organization that has a financial interest in the research. Also, a professor normally strives for more money for the faculty, which also leads to personal advantages. But this article is about unusual situations and particularly undesirable conflicts of interest.
And that immediately brings us to the origin of the virus: it could have either jumped from a wild animal to a human, or accidentally escaped from a laboratory. The latter would then be the lab in Wuhan where “Gain of Function” (GoF) research is done. Viruses are made stronger by such researchers. In this way you can see how humanity can be protected if such a super variant were to arise due to the natural mutation of a virus, is the thinking.
Such research was already highly controversial before corona emerged. There is, of course, always a risk of the virus escaping and such knowledge falling into the hands of bad leaders and terrorists. It was forbidden for some time in the US. With the lab of the Erasmus Medical Center, the Netherlands has a leading hub for this research. The boss? Marion Koopmans. She was also active there when Erasmus lost a lawsuit from the state in 2011 because publishing their GoF research on a synthetic superflu was too dangerous. Koopmans is also a leader in the EcoHealth Alliance that supported research in Wuhan. Her colleague Peter Daszak has even been put in the spotlight in the leading journal Science about his role and interests.
The WHO decided to send a commission to China in 2020 to investigate the origin of the virus. Logically, such a committee does not hire members who have an interest in preventing reputational damage from GoF research, but things turned out differently. The committee's report pointed to a likely natural origin of the virus, but also to a lack of good data because the Chinese government is not cooperating properly.
The report was not well received by WHO bosses, who have ordered further investigation. Koopmans was removed from the committee. Yet she recently published a scientific paper pointing to a likely natural origin. It is very annoying that the article is honest about faulty data and not at all clear about where the virus originated, but that Koopmans introduces it to the world as "the question about the origin has been answered". The media also conveyed it as a certainty. Which isn't true. If you search the internet for Ecohealth, Koopmans and Wuhan, you may find yourself even more shocked.
Portraying ignorance as science
In May 2022, RIVM director Van Dissel was called "corrupt in that sense" in the Dutch parliament because he and his OMT do not engage in independent science. The MP added that he did not mean that there was bribery. Koopmans and Bonten reacted as if stung by a bee and published an opinion piece in a major newspaper that was co-signed by 300 scientists. Protect science by safeguarding Van Dissel from criticism, the letter argued.
That is very unfortunate, because you can criticize influential scientists, and debate in the House must be 100% free of pressure. But even more so because the MP was right. Van Dissel and the OMT have indeed engaged in politics and allowed OMT documents to be adjusted by the ministry. This is no surprise, because those documents never amounted to advice, rather being descriptions of the outcomes of a policy negotiation process. In Belgium there is therefore also a scientific council (which only answers questions from the minister) and a policy council (which negotiates with the minister(s) about choices). Van Dissel has also often told nonsense to the Chamber and the media: all those “noble lies” apparently. The conclusion must even be that since the beginning of 2020 he has fully attacked Science, whether that is about carnival, flu, spatters, masks, aerosols, air filters or Covid as "pneumonia" and "a common cold". Even D66 (governing liberals) leader Jan Paternotte regularly expresses his frustration on Twitter about the tortured relationship between science and RIVM.
Of course, criticizing civil servants is almost the core task of a Member of Parliament. By pretending that the loyal civil servant Van Dissel is an independent scientist, Bonten and Koopmans are actually whitewashing their OMT and his boss. All this harms science and is unworthy of a professor. And that applies to everything described above. And about that “corruption”: come up with a better word for the fact that OMT members such as Ann Vossen and Jan Kluytmans personally benefited from OMT “advice” on how testing should be arranged. Fellow member Andreas Voss was paid as chief advisor to the Fieldlabs initiative of the events sector whilst being part of the policy team.
The above facts deserve an article. It had been on the shelf for months, but we didn't want to make life worse for Koopmans when she was threatened. Now the time has come to have a discussion about the role that Bonten, Koopmans, other OMT members and also Van Egmond play in the pandemic. Károly Illy (not a professor, but an OMT member) has already been heavily criticized by our team. Science is already under heavy attack and needs no undermining from scientists. Every moment is also a good time to denounce the Dutch choice to give the virus maximum space, and to name the many negative consequences. In a broader sense, a discussion is needed about the far-reaching interweaving of science, care management, policy, government contracts and politics in our country.
This article was published and written by Michael Blok on August 8, 2022, with help from fellow activists, tweeps and experts. It was published in English on August 18, 2022. Professors Koopmans and Van Egmond were approached for a response to the facts stated in this piece. They didn't respond.
More information on the many scandalous aspects of the Dutch Covid response can be found here. The links that point to Dutch text can be translated by your browser.